Pete Buttigieg

The Personality Profile of South Bend Mayor Pete Buttigieg

June 26, 2019

A preliminary psychological analysis of South Bend mayor Pete Buttigieg by Suntina Spehar, Austen Luetmer, Annie Griebie, Cassidy Smith, and Aubrey Immelman, Ph.D., at theUnit for the Study of Personality in Politics, revealed that Mayor Pete Buttigieg’s primary personality patterns are Accommodating/cooperative, Ambitious/confident, and Outgoing/congenial, complemented by secondary Conscientious/respectful and Reticent/circumspect features. In summary, Buttigieg may be characterized as an ambitious conciliator political personality type.

The poster presents the results of an indirect assessment of the personality of South Bend mayor Pete Buttigieg — a contender for the Democratic nomination in the 2020 presidential election — from the conceptual perspective of personologist Theodore Millon. Information concerning Buttigieg was collected from biographical sources and media reports and synthesized into a personality profile using the Millon Inventory of Diagnostic Criteria (MIDC), which yields 34 normal and maladaptive personality classifications congruent with DSM–III–R, DSM–IV, and DSM–5.

The personality profile yielded by the MIDC was analyzed on the basis of interpretive guidelines provided in the MIDC and Millon Index of Personality Styles manuals. Buttigieg’s primary personality patterns were found to be Accommodating/cooperative, Ambitious/confident, and Outgoing/congenial, complemented by secondary Conscientious/respectful and Reticent/circumspect features.

In political-psychological terms, Buttigieg may be characterized as an ambitious conciliator – cooperative, cordial, thoughtful, and humble, yet socially poised and self-assured and typically friendly, engaging, and energetic.

Related interest: Formal announcement of candidacy

Pete Buttigieg, mayor of South Bend, Ind., joins Democratic 2020 race(Alexander Burns, New York Times, Jan. 23, 2019) — Pete Buttigieg, the 37-year-old mayor of South Bend, Ind., announced on Wednesday that he was entering the Democratic presidential primary, embarking on a long-shot campaign that may test the appeal of a youthful, Midwestern profile over more traditional qualifications for the presidency. In an email to potential supporters, Mr. Buttigieg (he pronounces it BOOT-edge-edge) said he was forming an exploratory committee and cast himself as a candidate of the future, stressing his generational identity and calling for policies “untethered to the politics of the past” on issues like climate and economic opportunity. …

Mayor Pete Buttigieg announced for president on January 23, 2019 and withdrew from the race on March 1, 2020. He endorsed Joe Biden for president on March 2.

Notable media report

Inside the Buttigieg moment(Clare Malone, FiveThirtyEight, Nov. 14, 2019) — Buttigieg has surged back into the conversation about who the top tier of candidates really are. (He recently said he thought the race was getting down to a two-way one between himself and Sen. Elizabeth Warren.) That confidence — or overconfidence, depending on who you’re talking to — has to do in large part with his performance in Iowa polls and in the money race. The most recent Monmouth University poll of the state shows him leading the race at 22 percent. Buttigieg raised more money than Joe Biden, the leader in national polls, according to third-quarter fundraising reports, trailing only Sen. Bernie Sanders and Warren in the cash grab. …